


The Ghost of You

by GateBreaker



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Memories, Disconnect, Dissociation, Family, Family Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Nostalgia, References to Depression, Slice of Life, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27574105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GateBreaker/pseuds/GateBreaker
Summary: A whole childhood told by fleeting moments spent looking through a window.
Relationships: None





	The Ghost of You

In my home, the window closest to my heart is my bedroom window. The view itself is nothing spectacular; a relatively quiet street infested with small pockets of wandering people, queuing cars, and the occasional hollering of football fans bouncing across the buildings that sprout along the sidewalk like cement trees.

The air is usually crisp early in the day, and the warmth of the sun doesn’t reach through the protective glass barrier of the window until the late morning. It’s both a blessing in the summer, and a frigid curse in the high winter – though, the soothing pitter-patter of the rain gently drumming against the glass typically makes up for it.

When nostalgia hits me, I can’t help but drown under the weight of old memories – both sweet and bitter. I recall late nights looking up at starlight skies with my father; conversations had through the gaps of the window; an entire family huddling close together to witness parades built on music and dancing and the bright streaks of colour painting the sky; light decorations, little colourful lanterns hanging from strings and balconies alike, that echo against the glass in little globs of mixing shades – kaleidoscopic reflections bleeding into clothes and gliding over skin like fluid droplets of ink. A whole childhood told by fleeting moments spent looking through a window.

But I could never conjure up the exact shade of my grandfather’s sweater or pinpoint the combination of scents wafting from the street down below or even the precise timbre of my uncle’s voice as he tried to snag the attention of a toddler fascinated by the new world of sounds and colours around her. These memories were already too corrupted, too worn out, for me to be able to put all the pieces back together again – a mosaic of shattered pieces.

My mind tries to heal the cracks, I know, but all I’m left with are doubts about what is real and the nightmarish images of blank, hollow faces. I’m haunted by spectral apparitions with melting, bleeding faces, but with no thought to call their own. Where the face that greets me in the mirror is not my own, and the insides of my chest feel like a mass of cracked glass.

Where the line between what is real and what is not is blurred and all that’s left for me are echoes.

A world full of _ghosts_.

The end result of these musings and attempts at remembrance are always the same. The knowledge of what is lost, the prickling warmth of memories skittering across my skin, the unrelenting burden of longing pooling against the hollows of my ribs, and the bittersweet tang of times long past sharp on my tongue. Where I can’t decide if it’s fondness or sorrow, that tight coil of _something_ pooling underneath the cage of my ribs.

An emptiness left there: a bottomless, expanding void of _nothing_.

The little girl I used to be – always so hungry for something _more_ , to satiate the gnawing need to always _understand_ , who looked at the stars and _dreamed_ – was too young to know the horrors of being shackled to the earth, born in a prison of flesh and bone, and buried beneath the heavy weight of failed expectations.

And sometimes, I can’t help but think that little girl would look at what I have become and be disappointed. Would find me _wanting_.

(I understand. Sometimes, I look at myself in the mirror and can’t help but feel disappointed too.)

From my window I see a lively, laughter rich world of people, and I forget that I am a part of this world too.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short musing on the fleeting permanence of memories and the longing for the joys of childhood.  
> Language is not my first language, so I apologize for any errors.


End file.
